ISRAELI RACISM HAD LEAD TO TODAY'S NEO-APARTHEID

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4/10: Racism, militarism, and a peculiar form of Israeli neo-Nazism thrives in today "Jewish State". Harsh conclusions, true; but buttressed by considerable evidence, both factual and ideological. These biblically tribal statements of late from Rabbi Ovadia Yousef are not the first time major personalities in the Israeli Rabbinate have sounded off in ways far worse than the leading Muslim Ayatollahs in Iran. Nor are such statements, and concomitant actions, limited to religious personalities in Israel. None other than the former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, publicly described the Palestinians as grasshoppers, implying they need to be exterminated, while the former Chief of State of the Israeli Army, Raful Eitan, publicly described the Palestinians as drugged cockroaches in a bottle. And these are the statements that somehow are made in public and find their way into print -- imagine what is said in private and never heard beyond their own racist and bigoted circles.

By the way, even more condemnable in some ways is the fact that no major Jewish "leaders" from the major organizations in the US and worldwide have loudly condemned not just such ideological profanities coming from the mouths of Israelis but today's neo-apartheid realities that have imprisoned the entire Palestinian people which such utterances have inspired.

[The Times, UK - 4/10/01]: THE spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party has come under attack for a Passover sermon in which he called on God to annihilate Arabs.

"It is forbidden to be merciful to them, you must give them missiles, with relish - annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones," Ovadia Yosef was quoted in the Hebrew Maariv newspaper as telling a congregation attending prayers last weekend.

His party, which holds the balance of power in Israel's Knesset and is a key member of Ariel Sharon's national unity coalition, moved quickly to clarify his remarks, which included a plea to God to destroy Arabs. Yitzhak Sudri, the party spokesman, insisted that the rabbi was referring only to "Arab murderers and terrorists", but Rabbi Yosef's comments revived memories of his recent description of Arabs as "snakes" amid complaints that the Palestinian Authority was tolerating incitement, which both sides agreed to ban under the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord.

"May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arabs' heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them, and cause them to be cast from the world," Rabbi Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel's Sephardi Jews, is reported to have said.

Yesterday Meir Sheetrit, a Cabinet minister from Mr Sharon's Likud Party, said that Rabbi Yosef's statements should be condemned. "A person of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's stature must refrain from acrid remarks such as these . . . I suggest that we not learn from the ways of the Palestinians and speak in verbal blows like these," he said.

Yassir Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian Information Minister, said yesterday: "This is the third time that the rabbi has espoused openly racist views and neither his party nor his Government in which it serves has bothered to apologise."

The first Arab Cabinet minister, Salah Tarif, a Druze and a former Israeli Army captain, said that it was "truly a pity that such things are said at such a difficult time in relations between the nation and Arabs both within the country and without. These remarks add nothing but hatred."

Mid-East Realities

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Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/4/145.htm